September 13, 2005

Your mission, Agent Mom, should you decide to accept it, is to find the perfect preschool.

I knew this day would one day come. From the moment before I became pregnant. That I, mild-mannered me, (OK, if you know me you might not say mild-mannered), would one day be charged with finding my daughter the perfect preschool.

In today's competitive baby world there's a lot at stake. After all, not getting into the right preschool could have radical consequences for which colleges would even glance at her application. Not to mention the social stigma attached to going to the "wrong" preschool.

The first time I experienced preschool anxiety was when Maricella was nine months old and a few moms in our NYC downtown moms playgroup mentioned that their second children were already accepted into a preschool, since their older siblings were already attending. (Unfair biological advantage, I thought.) But the moms kindly passed on their gems of wisdom -- to tour different preschools and see which ones matched your child's temperament. Great, I thought, all set. Then we moved 3,000 miles away to Southern California.

Maricella is now 22 months old and I'm faced with the daunting task of finding the right preschool when I'm not even that familiar with the area. But I'm doing what any self-respecting twenty-first century mom would do -- searching the Web for a list a preschools, talking with other moms in the area for their suggestions, and later this week, I'll head across the street to our neighborhood elementary school and ask the teachers and staff for a list of their favorite preschools.

Once armed with my list, I'll take the tours with my darling daughter in tow, and get on a few waiting lists. Hey, how difficult could this be, it's preschool? (Yeah, right!)

August 14, 2005

Two things, among many, that a parent can't predict: when they'll hear an ear-splitting scream from their child's bed, followed by the sound of throwing up and when they'll be looking for childcare again.

We've experienced both pleasantries in the past week. I still don't know which is worse. The throwing up is agonizing, but over in 24-48 hours. The picking of childcare is gut-wrenching and has lasting effects for who-knows-how-long.

Less than 24 hours before leaving on a week-long trip with my 2-year-old daughter, our beloveddaycare provider shocked us by deciding to permanently close and go back to school. I had four weeks –- minus the week I'd be away –- to find another provider. That night, when I should have been frantically washing clothes and packing (and yes, I did some of that, too), I spent half the night researching daycare providers and preschools online.

The licensing reports provide a reality-check, once again, of how hard it is to find a quality provider. Notes from licensing inspectors range from, "There was a used condom sitting in your backyard where the children were playing today," to "There were twice as many children in your care today as you are licensed for."And I've been down this road before. My daughter's first provider seemed amazing at first, but we soon realized it was a money-making operation first and foremost, and a very impersonal environment all-around.

Thankfully, my past efforts to find our current provider have taught me some valuable lessons that I immediately put into place this time:

Review licensing reports carefully. Look for red-letter violations like too many children in their care. Also look for repeat violations. (You can usually do this through your state's Health and Human Services department. Start by looking for your state here: http://www.naccrra.net/data/)

Pay attention to how many children providers are licensed to care for. This is one way to tell whether they're in it mostly for the money.

Make many, many phone calls. Talking to providers is a great way to narrow down options.

Use Mapquest to narrow down providers. We try to find a provider in-between our home and offices and not too far off the beaten path.

Visit potential providers with a list of questions in-hand. Plan on following up with a phone call to cover things you forget during the visit.

This time around, my daughter is almost three, making our options a lot easier than when she was an infant. We'd already been considering a preschool two days a week for the fall. Luckily, the preschool has an opening in their five-days-a-week program.

So for now, that's where she'll go. I'm happy that she has a spot in a great preschool, but sad that she may have to go to preschool five days a week at such a young age. We're working on getting her in an in-home environment at least two days a week to give her a break from the more formal aspects of preschool.

I know that no matter what we choose, the odds are she'll adapt just fine. She's easy like that, thank goodness. Especially since her parents aren't good with change. We could learn a thing or two from her.

What tips do you have for finding a great childcare provider?

Amy S. is a 32-year-old married, working mom to Olivia, almost three. She lives in Virginia.

July 04, 2005

Last week, Ella's daycare called to say that she had been bitten by another baby. I guess I wasn't expecting to have to deal with this issue at this age (she's only 8 months old), so it caught me pretty off-guard. I stammered out, "OK, is she OK?" They said that the bite didn't break her skin, and but there was some bruising on her arm. It was already close to pick-up time, so I picked her up a little early. It was sad to see the mark on her arm, to know that she had been harmed by another child and I wasn't there to hold her and stop her crying.

The daycare has a policy (as I think most do) of not telling you which child has bitten your child. I suppose this is to protect the biter and his/her parents from retaliation, and I certainly understand that. If Ella had been the child that had done the biting, I wouldn't want other parents to know that. Plus, they're babies -- not toddlers who can be disciplined and learn consequences.

It's still hard for me to come to terms with the fact that I have no way of stopping this from happening again, save pulling her out of a daycare that has otherwise been wonderful. And there will surely be biters at every daycare, so that's really not a solution.

Then I realized that there will be situations like this at every age; she could be bullied in high school when I'm not there, she could be dumped by the love of her life, she could get injured playing sports. I can't always be there, but I can always comfort her afterwards. And if there IS a situation where I can prevent her from being harmed -- well, you don't want to make this Mama Bear mad.

Peyton is Mommy to Ella, born October 2004, and wife to Colin. She lives outside of D.C. in Falls Church, Virginia.

January 16, 2005

My son has a cold. I think it bothers me much more than it bothers him. He's as active as ever during the day, and has had no problems sleeping. At night, I hear his labored breathing and coughing through the monitor -- which of course magnifies everything -- and I think he's on the brink of pneumonia. But when he wakes up, he's talking non-stop and ready to play, just like any other day.

So the dilemma is day care. Do I keep him home in order to prevent him from sharing his cold with the other children? Or do I send him to the place where he probably got the cold in the first place? It IS just a cold.

But if his immune system is down, I don't want him to be exposed to too many other germs. On the other hand, if I don't send him to day care, I probably won't isolate him at home. We'd both go crazy. So if we run some errands, he'll be exposed to other people's germs anyway, although he won't be in close contact with them.

In case you've forgotten -- or can't tell from this post -- I'm a first-time mom. I've come across many humorous comparisons of first-time moms and veteran moms that lead me to believe the veteran moms don't worry about a child's stuffy nose.